[RNLD List] Words

[Maia Ponsonnet]

Hello, I wonder if "medium" could be rendered by adding a word meaning "a little bit" to the adjective, so "a little bit big"?
Kind regards, Maïa


Dr Maïa Ponsonnet
Senior Lecturer, Discipline of Linguistics

Graduate Research Coordinator, School of Social Sciences

Building M257, Room 2.36

Faculty of Arts, Business, Law and Education
The University of Western Australia
35 Stirling Hwy, Perth, WA (6009), Australia
P.  +61 (0) 8 6488 2870 - M.  +61 (0) 468 571 030


________________________________
From: Resource-network-linguistic-diversity <resource-network-linguistic-diversity-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Ivan Kapitonov <moving.alpha at gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, 8 April 2021 5:25 PM
To: Harley Dunolly-Lee <harley.dunollylee123 at gmail.com>
Cc: resource-network-linguistic-diversity at listserv.linguistlist.org <resource-network-linguistic-diversity at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [RNLD List] Words

Hi Harley,

I suppose the green/plant overlap shouldn't be too bad -- as long as malak can be used at all for something non-plant. If you decide that you need the equivalent for 'blue' in the end, one possibility is to use things that have the colour: e.g. 'sky', or 'river'/'sea', or 'cloud', whatever is most appropriate. I learned this from Kunbarlang, spoken in Arnhem Land. There aren't many words specific to colours at all, but they might say yimarne kuyunu 'like cloud' for 'blue', or yimarne mulubin 'like blood' for 'red'.

As for mid-size, that's very tricky, isn't it. The "small-small" as John pointed out is an option, but watch out -- in some languages that might mean 'very small' rather than 'mid-size', so you might want to look for other such reduplicated words in Dja Dja Wurrung to see which way they tend to be used. I can think of two further alternatives: either to add a word like 'a bit' or 'half-way', or to add a word like 'very' or 'really'. Thus, you'd have 'small' -- 'half-big' -- 'big', or 'not hard' -- 'hard' -- 'very hard', or similar. I think at least in Woiwurrung there is a word for 'half' (marru?).

The 'flood' idea is very cool I think, but I don't know what your target is about (the pass--middle--intensive).

Best,
Vanya


On Thu, Apr 8, 2021 at 2:12 AM Harley Dunolly-Lee <harley.dunollylee123 at gmail.com<mailto:harley.dunollylee123 at gmail.com>> wrote:
Hello RNLDs

I am emailing to ask the following questions. At Dja Dja Wurrung, we are beggining to name things in our data bases such as mapping, tools, administration etc. One of things we wanting to name are the management zones within the Parks areas on Country.

The following words are to be translated into Dja Dja Wurrung.

Easy, moderate, hard
Small, medium, big
Red, blue, green
Pass, middile (in-between), intensive
Good, bad


I did some research and some of these words I have found words. I had to search into the English synonyms to get a better idea. However, some of these words overlap each other. Also, blue and green are the same colour in Dja Dja Wurrung and related languages. I do not want to colonized this way of seeing colours either.

There is word for green, malak but its also the word for green plants like milk thistles or greens. Lol so maybe not the 'green' that was meant to be.

I had a look at the list, and related languages, but I am finding difficulties to express these words. The data is limited and we gave no fluent speakers.

Word for intensive, I have chosen wola-wola 'flood', wherw wola 'rain', because floods can be intensive.

What do the languages you know, speak or work with get around these sorts of things ?


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